Quote: DaveO "Where it will potentially fail is what happens after the split IMO. The bottom 8 is a pointless competition. The middle 8 only has value (though I am not sure that is the right word) by engineering a false position whereby the fourth placed side who could have never lost a game to those below them faces a sudden death "£1m" game to decide their SL future. There is the clear hope from the RFL that regardless of how much better as a team or how well run as a club the 4th placed side is, they will fall victim to a spate of injuries or bad refereeing to ensure there is movement between the divisions. Anything to ensure a relegation occurs to justify the move to 8/8/8.
Both the middle and bottom 8 represent a failure as far as the season goes for the teams that end up in them and the Swiss found when they tried this in soccer sponsors, fans and TV audiences were not interested in watching or sponsoring teams who were in a lower tier.
Trying to engineer the failure of a team in this way via deliberately setting up a one off game is pathetic and a clear indictment that they have failed to get the lower league teams up to standard to compete in any other way. That one game is also the only game of any real interest and compared to what is going on in the top 8 the lower two 8's are a sideshow.
Not putting this job out for applications, not putting the TV rights out to tender and coming up with this 8/8/8 system are all symptomatic of an organisation well past its sell by date in term of those running it IMO.
Nigel Woods has come up with some hair brained ideas in the past including a point for whoever was leading at half time and some sort of reward for scoring more than 12 points in the last 1/4 of the game even if you were losing IIRC (not sure if that was a league point or not). When he came up with these ideas he was in no position to put them into practice. The 8/8/8 and these other failings is what you get when people like him are allowed the keys to the kingdom without the threat of having any pressure of being replaced.'"
It is apparent you are not a fan. But then you seem to have a downer on most things.
At them moment we have a closed shop of 14 teams where the weekly rounds are largely insignificant as the top teams canter their way through the season doing 'just enough' to put themselves in a position to challenge in the play offs. The bottom teams have nothing to play for, for most of the season.
I was initially very sceptical of the new format. Having had time to think about it the idea has grown on me. Essentially there are weekly rounds of 23 games until the split when effectively the play offs start. The top 8 is no longer good enough, you have to aim for the top 4. The middle 8 are in a battle as to which league they play in the next season, I'll grant you the bottom 8 being relatively meaningless, effectively a best of the rest competition.
As fans the majority have complained about the lack of intensity throughout the season. The new format is intended to address this. I think it has the potential to be an exciting and interesting competition for most teams. What we need to address is the gulf in spending power between the top and second teer giving those looking for promotion a realistic chance of achieving it. I would look at one simple tweak and have a single salary cap for all clubs in both divisions with huge penalties for administration to discourage overspending.
